


Flirt

by myadamantiumheart



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bartenders, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Todd shows up to sing every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Getting Together

Tim’s used to flirting- he’s a bartender, after all. People flirt with him for lots of reasons. To get stronger drinks, because of the stronger drinks, because of the white v-neck shirt he wears, because of the tight jeans he wears, because he has, and he’s quoting over thirty patrons, “sapphire eyes”, or simply because people are lonely. Flirting isn’t really anything new. Sometimes people evenmean it when they flirt with him.

Flirting’s part of the job description.

But when it comes right down to it, he’s never (before) considered the possibility of really returning the flirting with intent.

Probably because nobody who’s flirted with him before is dead set on making him swoon all the way from the bar’s stage on the other side of the establishment simply with the smooth, seductive sound of his voice singing old lounge tunes.

Tight jeans that make it very clear the singer doesn’t need to compensate for anything, a wave of inky black hair with silvered strands falling over eyes the color of Blue Curacao, a voice smoother than the oldest aged whiskey in his bar, and a leather jacket that that leaves little doubt the man could literally sweep Tim off his feet. (Then again, Tim’s like a hundred pounds sopping wet- there’s little doubt most people could sweep him off his feet. But. That’s not the point. The point is that this guy is built like a brick house, and Tim does not know what to do with those biceps.)

How is Tim supposed to resist that?

How is that even fair?

It’s not, is the answer Tim is looking for when he calls up Stephanie, part-time waitress and full-time best friend.

Tim doesn’t get that answer. He gets what’s rather more like an entire bag full of snickers and flat out laughter, and Stephanie telling him to “hit it, because there’s no way you’re going to quit it, not if he looks like that”. It’s entirely unhelpful.

\----

Jason Todd shows up to sing every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.

Thursday nights, he sings the golden oldies, and the old ladies from the senior center down the lane come down after their knitting club meeting and titter over his suave appearance and his smooth singing voice. They think he’s just dreamy, watching him with the sepia-rose-gold of their teenage years overlaying his face, and they watch him like he’s a soft photograph poster they used to giggle at during high school.

Friday nights, he sings the blues, and the work weary with no one to come home to come here instead, drinking the drinks Tim pours them and taking the cabs Roy calls them home.

Saturday, he sings songs that wouldn’t have been out of place in the twenties tangled in songs that make Tim think about being the Cherry to Jason’s greaser, and people dance between drinks with little umbrellas in them, and there’s always a few couples who can actually swing dance that blow everyone’s mind with their fast feet and their faster smiles.

Sundays, he sings songs slow and decadeless. He sings love songs for those people who don’t have any love left, and Tim can sway a little more on his feet, can go home a little earlier.

Jason Todd only sings at The Vespertilio four nights a week, but that’s four times a week too many for Tim to be able to resist falling in lust with him.

\----

“Can I get you something?” Tim asks, eyebrows raised high, as Jason sits at a seat on the end of the bar and smirks at him.

“Can I get you an Orgasm?” he leers, wiggling his eyebrows and smirking even wider.

“I’m pretty sure it’s my job to ask what sort of drink you want,” Tim says, grabbing the jar of rimming sugar and screwing the lid on tighter. Roy always leaves them half open, and they always end up spilled all over, and Tim always ends up cleaning up. “And I don’t even like that drink.” Which is a total lie, actually. Tim loves those. Bailey’s, amaretto, and Kahlua? That’s everything a coffee addict like him could want in a drink.

He suspects that Jason can tell he’s lying, but he refuses to feel bad about it until the man apologizes for his face.

“I’ll actually just have a Guinness,” Jason allows, dipping his head and fiddling with a coaster, his eyes following Tim up and down the bar. Tim grabs it for him, pretending like he’s not totally trying to figure the other man out. Roy’s probably laughing at him from the other end of the bar right now, actually. And when Jason gets back on stage, because he will- this is only his half-night break, his ten pm drink, when he spends half an hour making suggestive comments and laughing raucously at things Roy says before returning to the stage.

It’s a Thursday night, so Tim ventures it’ll probably be something quite sappy from the early fifties, because the old ladies have claimed their usual tables by the stage.

But then, a few minutes later, when he finally catches what Jason’s singing up on stage, it’s nothing like that at all. It’s Donna Lewis.

It’s  _I Love You For Always Forever._ The cheesy bastard.

“You’ve got the most unbelievable blue eyes I’ve ever seen,” Jason croons, looking right at Tim, and Tim’s face turns redder than the pomegranate martini he’s mixing. He feels a little like he’s going to pass out, and a lot like he’s going to complain at his goldfish tonight about the outrageous nerve of smooth-talking suave lounge singers who are perpetually attempting to make his heart beat right out of his chest.

On her way out, the president of the unofficial “Old Ladies who love Jason Todd” club, Agnes Wetherbaum, glares at him like he’s done her a great personal offense by somehow coercing Jason into singing a non-classic song during the Thursday night lineup, and Tim gets the distinct feeling that there’s something everyone’s not telling him.

“How could it have been my fault,” he whines at Forticule later that night, staring the fancy goldfish down as he munches his way through a BLT and a bag of pretzels. “And don’t look at me like that! Don’t judge me! What did you eat for dinner that was so healthy, huh? There’s lettuce on this sandwich, Forticule. Lettuce. Tomato. Health. You-” he points menacingly.

Forticule is not intimidated.

“I’m talking to my pet goldfish about a lounge singer that wants in my ridiculously tight pants on a Thursday night when I could be doing any of a numerous list of more exciting things that attractive young twenty three year old men do,” Tim groans, flopping back onto his bed and throwing his pretzel bag over face. “Forticule, why?”

Forticule bubbles indifferently at him, and then swims around to hide in his castle, and Tim just groans louder.

This is his life.

\----

Saturday night is a special night- it’s the weekly burlesque show after Jason’s hours of performance, and that means that the performer of said show is hanging out at the bar before he goes on. Dick Grayson, effusive and bendy beyond belief- he’s a true golden boy if Tim’s ever met one, and his favorite pastime seems to be making Tim blush as red as possible. You know, don’t get Tim wrong here- Dick is great. Dick is his friend. He hangs out with Dick outside of work, and occasionally even with Dick’s boyfriend, the surly bouncer, Bruce. He loves seeing Dick.

But he also hates it when he sees Dick at work. Because Dick.

Well.

Is kind of a penis.

He likes to hang all over Tim, to get girls cooing at Tim’s flushed cheeks, to order ridiculous things like lime pineapple coconut daiquiris, and he especially likes to smack Tim’s ass when he turns around, using his unreasonable bendiness to lean over the bar and reach it and then be innocently back in a bar stool by the time Tim turned around.

Dick’s nights at The Vespertilio are things to be cautioned from- they’re not for the faint of heart. He’s been known to make men and women actually swoon, fainting spells worthy of a period novel.

This night, it seems Dick’s already warmed up- yoga makes Dick even more outgoing than he already is, if that were at all possible. He actually kissed Tim when he showed up- and Bruce’s even more brooding stance is probably a result of all the hugs Dick probably subjected to when he’d arrived. He’s bouncing about, and when he finally comes on stage, the employees of the bar breathe an audible sigh of relief.

Finally, an outlet.

They watch him on stage, and Jason sits at the end of the bar like he does on his breaks, his eyes bouncing between Dick’s lithe, twisting body and Tim’s small smile and quietly competent pouring.

Tim doesn’t even notice.

\----

“Got an admirer?” Dick asks, his grin taking on a distinctly conspiratorial tint as he leans over the bar, his face flushed and becomingly dewy. (How he manages that is still a mystery to Tim.) Tim raises an eyebrow.

“An admirer?” he asks, grabbing the grenadine and pouring a generous measure of it in a glass of Sprite and dumping not one, not two, not three, but six maraschino cherries in it and sliding it across to the burlesque performer. “Did I get a heart-shaped note in the mail I didn’t know about?”

“I mean Mr. Suave over there,” Dick says, taking an obnoxiously loud sip of his Shirley Temple and nodding towards Jason, who’s still sitting at the end of the bar nonchalantly sipping on a Guinness. “He’s got the hots for you, Timbo.” Tim’s cheeks flushed faintly, and he shook his head, wiping down the counter and rearranging the bottles.

“Jason’s out for blood, Dick,” he said, leaning up against the back counter. “He flirts with anything that moves. Hell, I think he’s actually managed to leave the bar with Roy a few times.”

“More than a few times, if what Roy says is true,” Dick smirked, popping a cherry into his mouth and sucking on it loudly, contorting his mouth a little and flicking his tongue out to show a perfectly knotted cherry stem. “And, if what Roy says is true, he’s absolutely fantastic in bed.” Dick shrugs, his leer widening. “You should definitely get a piece of that, Tim. It could be good for all that-” he waved at Tim’s general area, a look of distaste flashing across his face. “All that tension.”

“You want me to get _laid_ ,” Tim said, deadpan, “to deal with _stress_.” Dick grinned brightly.

“Exactly! Get  _laid_ , Timothy Drake. Get spectacularly,  _spectacularly_  laid. By that  _ridiculously_  attractive hunk of man meat.” Tim choked, spluttering around and waving his rag at Dick’s face.

“You’re the most ridiculous man I’ve ever met,” he coughed.

Dick just grinned wider.

\----

“You know, if you’d let him, Jason would treat you like an absolute princess,” Roy says behind him, his arms crossed across his chest and his eyebrows climbing towards his hairline. Tim cocks his hip, leaning against the counter.

“Why is it that everyone seems to think that Jason Todd, professional Casanova, wants to be in a serious relationship with me?” he asks, his voice threaded with tension. “You, Dick, Stephanie, Cass, hell- even Bruce has made it clear. His whole job revolves around flirting and singing songs about sex on a stage. He’s a showman. The act isn’t any more sincere when it’s with me.”

“Songs about romance,” Roy says, leaning in, his eyes serious as a stormy sky. “Jason hasn’t sung songs about casual sex since he started trying to seriously flirt with you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tim scoffs. Roy just laughs softly, leaning back and grabbing a rag.

“Pay a little attention, sweetheart. The guy’s been trying to woo you the good old fashioned way for weeks, now. I don’t think I can stand any more replacement fucks.”

And that makes Tim think, a little.

Only romance songs? No songs about casual sex and just dancing with girls for fun?

Well.

\----

“Hey there, handsome,” Jason says, looking up at him as he slides the man’s regular across the bar at the end of the night the next Sunday. “Aw, you do care. You even know my order.”

“You’ve been ordering the same thing every night for the past three years, Jason,” Tim says, gingerly putting his elbows on the bar and leaning forward a little. Jason’s eyes darken a little- he’s clearly trying not to glance down at the v of Tim’s shirt, or at his very visible arm muscles.

“As I recall, I’ve been ordering more than just a Guinness,” he smirks, bravado and talk building up in his voice. Tim takes a deep breath, and-

“You said it yourself, Jason,” he says, standing up and sliding a napkin across the bar, a phone number scrawled on it in precise black pen. “I know your order.”

And then he does it. He just walks away.

He walks away and leaves Jason at the end of the bar with Tim’s phone number and a pint. And he trusts that Jason’s gonna chase after him.

It feels like the best chance he’s ever taken.

\----

It’s three am on Tuesday when Jason calls him. He fumbles for his cell phone, muting the documentary about wild birds he’s got on the tv and flipping it open with a breathless “Hello?”

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Jason drawls, amusement and trepidation in his voice. Tim laughs selfconsciously, shifting on the couch a little.

“Nah, just watching a documentary about wild birds in-” he checks the TV guide, “Africa, somewhere.”

“Kinky,” Jason says approvingly, laughter warm enough to make Tim’s face feel hot even over the phone. “Well, I was just, uh. You know. Calling you.”

“I can see that,” Tim says, grinning like an idiot at Forticule, who bubbles derisively in the face of Tim’s happiness, the little shit. The phone line is silent for a few moments, and then-

“You wanna get a drink some time?” Tim just laughs, hard and harder, and Jason’s laughing too by the time he calms down.

“You know what,” he says, closing his eyes. “How about a movie instead.”


	2. Outtake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Jason gets Tim drunk, it's definitely a success.

The first time Jason gets Tim rip-roaringly drunk is a few months into their relationship. The first time Jason gets Tim rip-roaringly drunk, Tim kisses Roy Harper. 

He grabs the redhead by the back of the neck and pulls him down to Tim’s level where the three of them are sitting on the couch, and he proceeds to kiss the other bartender as hot and wet and sloppy as it seems he can, sucking on the man’s lower lip and scoring it with his teeth, and making unreasonably arousing little noises into Roy’s mouth as Jason watches with wide eyes and a growing erection. 

"That was nice," he slurs, when he finally lets go of Roy, and the redhead joins Jason in staring at the smaller bartender as he sighs happily, closes his eyes, and curls up against Jason’s rib cage to promptly fall asleep. 

"Oh my god, Jason," Roy says, scooting back. “I’m am so sorry, oh my-"

"Don’t be," Jason interrupts, clearing his throat, his voice hoarse. “Good god, do not be sorry for that."

"It’s not just me, then," Roy says slowly. “That was really hot."

“ _Really_  hot,” Jason confirms. 

(The first time Jason gets Tim rip-roaringly drunk is a  _huge_  success.)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 is an outtake of this AU written on tumblr for a follower.


End file.
